- How to deal with people
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A no brainer, but you get all sorts of customers coming in, and you work closely with coworkers with various backgrounds. You learn how to interact with various types of people. I’ve seen just about everything while working in customer service and some people just do not faze me anymore. You get an incredibly diverse amount of people you interact with on a daily basis and honestly, that’s a pretty useful skill. From having experience with the infamous Karen’s to the customers who are friendly and chatty or the customers who try to finesse a free meal, you see it all and learn from it.
- How to work in a stressful environment
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I cannot even begin to tell you how stressful fast food can be when there’s a Friday night rush or really any type of rush. Boy, is the adrenaline pumping! While you sometimes quite literally want to die during it, it teaches you how to turn that stress into a good thing. You learn to adapt to different environments. Making you work faster despite the stressful situation of angry customers or your manager’s scolding you, you begin to strive in stressful environments and it’s a pretty useful skill to have in the real world– because stress is everywhere.
- Multitasking
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I worked at a fast food restaurant that required me to wear a headset, so I learned how to hear what people are ordering and starting that order while already working on a different order. I also worked at a pizza place in which I’d sometimes tag boxes while taking orders and do other tasks at the same time due to how busy we were. Multitaksing is a huge part of the job that you had to master quickly. Otherwise, good luck.
- Actual social skills
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I’m not going to lie, I hated talking to new people before I started working in customer service and being forced to socialize people for hours on end was a good way to break out of my shell. I actually learned how to hold a decent conversation, (I’m so sorry for anyone who knew me before I started working), and didn’t hate raising my hand to talk in class anymore. This was almost like a public speaking class, you know, minus the speaking in front of a crowd but you get the jist.
- How to prioritize
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The number one goal in customer service besides, you know, good customer service, is getting food out fast and in a timely manner. During rushes, you had to learn how to prioritize certain things in order to ensure things run smoothly. You had to think fast and make decisions that wouldn’t screw you over later. If a pizza was coming out of the oven but the phone was ringing, you bet your ass I’d be scrambling to get that pizza.
Customer service was my first job and I have worked in it for almost three years and I’ve learned valuable skills from it. While a lot of people hate it and, trust me, I’m not the biggest fan of it either, but I definitely think everyone can benefit from working in customer service. It shouldn’t be looked down on because although it is a tough field, it can also be quite rewarding.